Recently, portable electronic apparatuses including a display for displaying information, such as portable telephones and laptop personal computers, are being widely used. There is a strong desire to reduce the size and weight of such portable electronic apparatuses as well as increase the speed of processing and the availability of multiple functions. In order to achieve these desired features, the electronic apparatus uses a display device using a thin light liquid crystal panel. Similarly, reduction in size and realization of high performance have progressed in electronic components built in the electronic apparatuses. However, there are limits to reducing the size and weight of the electronic components while maintaining the required performance. Thus, recently, the electronic apparatus is reduced in size and weight by improving, for example, the materials of the housing and controls, and by improving the configuration for fixing various components inside the housing.
For example, in order to reduce the weight of the housing, unnecessary portions of the housing and a cover for protecting electronic components are removed. For example, an electronic apparatus with a keyboard includes a metal plate provided above a precision electronic component such as a hard disk for the purpose of preventing the keyboard from contacting the electronic component. The keyboard is placed on the metal plate, and supported by the metal plate. However, in order to reduce the weight of the electronic apparatus, it is considered preferable to fix the keyboard to the housing by using, for example, a rib instead of the metal plate. However, keyboards are relatively heavy, and pressed downward when a user operates the keys. Thus, if the metal plate is removed, the strength of supporting the key tops from below is lost, whereby the strength of the keyboard becomes insufficient. In addition, a user has an unsatisfactory feeling for the operational feeling (clicking feeling) when pressing the keys.
With regard to the above problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-14062 discloses a technique of forming an opening in a receiving plate for receiving a keyboard, exposing a portion of a bracket of a hard disk drive through the opening, and mounting the keyboard on the receiving plate and the blanket. In this technique, a portion of a metal plate can be removed, and, at the same time, the strength of fixing the keyboard can be maintained to some extent by the blanket of the hard disk drive.
Recently, in order to further reduce the weight of the electronic apparatus, the receiving plate of the keyboard is made of not a metal plate but light plastic. In the electronic apparatus using light plastic, when only the blanket of the hard disk drive is used, the power of supporting the keyboard is insufficient, and therefore, consideration is required to increase the fixing strength of the keyboard.